


Unspoken

by Ironlawyer



Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Civil War (Marvel), Extremis, Grief/Mourning, M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-17 02:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11841846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: When Tony injects Extremis it does not go to plan.  Steve reflects on their relationship and what could've been.





	Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The goodbye never wanted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743869) by [ranoutofrun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranoutofrun/pseuds/ranoutofrun). 



He answers the phone to another friend of Tony’s he’s never heard of who knows more about what’s going on with him than Steve does. She tells him that Tony’s done something stupid again and that maybe, it might be a good idea if he comes to say goodbye. 

He finishes the call with a curt, ‘Thank you for telling me.’ From the first day Steve met him, Tony has always run head first into danger, calling his own life an acceptable loss. When he is needed he doesn’t sleep, when he is hurt he doesn’t quit. Steve has always thought that Tony’s ability to self-sacrifice is noble, but his self-worth is too damaged to see how much it would hurt the people who love him if he were to die. If he could feel the way that Steve does now, maybe things would be different.

Steve sits, his hands clenched tightly in his lap and breathes slow controlled breaths. Tony is lying hurt in some warehouse, bloody and pale and _It’s not good,_ his friend – Maya – had warned. When he closes his eyes, he does not have to imagine because he has seen it before. He does not want to see it again. He does not want it to be the real thing this time.

He hovers by the phone as if expecting a call back, Tony’s voice on the line saying everything’s okay now, because that’s how it’s gone in the past. But there is no call and every minute that passes could be Tony’s last.

He puts on the uniform because that is how he faces these things. It is easy to be strong when he is Captain America. He rides at twice the speed limit but no one stops him, they see the shield and the uniform and it’s as much of a give-way sign as flashing lights and sirens. The sense that he’s misusing it crawls about like ants under his skin, because this is not an emergency and Tony will be fine.

He reaches the address Maya gave him and before he can decide whether he wants to go in, she’s there leading him by the hand like he hasn’t been since his mother was still alive. She says nothing and neither does he. There are so many questions he could ask, but everything important he already knows. _It’s not good._

She leaves him alone in something more like a workshop than a hospital. He approaches the bench where Tony lays unmoving. His skin is clammy and an ugly black tar oozes from his every orifice, it smells and looks like coagulated blood, but it move like something living, crawling tendrils stretching out down his face and chest. The heart monitor beeps loud and rapid and it would be annoying if it didn’t mean that Tony is still alive. It is ugly and it is wrong and it is their version of normal.

He doesn’t understand this, and maybe that’s why Tony choose not to tell him. Steve is not a scientist. He can’t weigh up life and death decisions like there is some scientific principle behind them. When it comes to life, people are what is important. But Tony doesn’t think that way. Tony makes decisions in his own head without anyone’s input, he calculates life and death like a computer calculates math. Only his math is wrong, because he always leaves out a vital component.

‘We could’ve helped. If you’d just asked.’

But Tony holds his problems on his shoulders like he is Atlas. He doesn’t ask and he doesn’t talk. When Tony is working hard, his hands buzzing across a keyboard like a hyperactive woodpecker, Steve will peek over his shoulder and it’s as alien to him as Skrull is. If he asks, Tony will explain in complicated scientific words and Steve will nod along like he knows what any of it means. That is how he talks.

But when an old flame is back and they pull Tony into a web of lies and pain; when he fights by Steve's side one day and the next he’s lying in hospital from a bullet to the back – then, he doesn’t talk. Sometimes Steve can practically see the words hovering in Tony’s mind and he wishes he could just reach inside and catch them. Instead they talk about the latest missions and what movies they’ve seen and gossip about Carol’s new boyfriend and whatever words that should’ve been said drift away like feathers caught in an updraft.

And that is how they end up here. Tony doesn’t talk and Steve doesn’t ask him to because there are things he won’t say either. He runs his hand through Tony’s hair and imagines that’s it’s soft beneath his glove. Maybe when this is all over, he will talk and then he will feel Tony’s hair beneath his fingers for real and Tony will never do this to him again because he will know that someone needs him. But really that will never be, instead he will carry the weight of what might’ve been for the rest of his life.

Right now, Tony’s heart still beats and right now he could say whatever words need to be spoken but Tony would not hear him and they would be meaningless, cowardly, nothing more than a desperate wish that things had been different. So he says the only words that can mean something now, ‘I’m sorry.’ Sorry that he didn’t have the strength to be the man that Tony needed, sorry that he wasn’t there to help, sorry that they never really talked, sorry that it’s Tony lying there and not him.

As if in response Tony convulses and every muscle in his body goes taunt, a pool of tar erupts from his mouth then he falls limp and the heart monitor squeals. Steve does nothing because there is nothing to be done. It is too soon and it is too late and it is not fair and it is not noble. But this is how it is.

He does not speak now because the words are too late for Tony, but never again will needed words go unspoken.


End file.
